


Castle of Glass

by duckywrites



Category: BioShock
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 22:29:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11587476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckywrites/pseuds/duckywrites
Summary: Two little (AU) oneshots I wrote years ago, set during the first game.





	1. Langford

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these two oneshots some years ago and published them on tumblr, on a blog that no longer existed. I found them again and decided to post them here, because why not. Enjoy.

When was the last time she had slept the night through?  
   
Every little noise caused her to wake up, ready to face one of those creatures that had been humans once upon a time.  
They had already made it impossible for her to leave her laboratory, causing her to sit in this cul-de-sac that had once been the place where she had brought beautiful things to life. She didn't have a weapon and wasn't very skilled at fighting them, either. The only things she had to protect herself were the machines downstairs. Somehow they always managed to find a way inside, stealing her things and destroying everything they had no use for.  
   
Once she had been out there, to see what was happening to her beautiful gardens. Where once children were playing hide and seek, corpses lay scattered all over the grass. She saw some of them - Houdini splicers, they called them - dressed up in leaves, chanting "Harness the flames, harness the mist", hiding in their little shrines that had once been romantic hideouts for couples.  
   
There were others, too - horribly deformed people, all over Arcadia, killing each other without batting an eye. She had been too scared to leave, and she couldn't leave her trees. Without them, everybody in Rapture was doomed, anyway. As long as they were fine, she could sit it out and wait until they were all gone.  
Unlike most people in Rapture, Professor Julie Langford didn't come here to fulfil her dreams, or because she was sick of her life on the surface. Julie had been hired to grow trees at the bottom of the sea. Ryan had offered her an insane amount of money, and there was no way she could've turned this offer down. If she would've refused, he would have found someone else, for sure.  
   
A static noise caught her attention. It was coming from the radio she had found outside while looking for something to eat, back when she still was able to leave the laboratory.  
She left her spot in a corner of the room and crawled over to the narrow table, taking the radio.  
She sat on the floor, looking at it. It was the first time it made a sound.  
Julie didn't know how to use it, but there were only three buttons. She pressed the first one, saying "Hello?" and waited. Nothing. She did the same thing with the other two but was only greeted with silence.  
With a sigh, she was about to put it away again, but then there was the crackling noise again.  
   
_"-_ ello _? Who is- ... -_ ere _?"_  The signal was weak, or maybe it wasn't adjusted correctly. Julie got to her feet and paced the floor, looking for a better signal while adjusting a little wheel at the side of the device, until it got better.  
"Here is Professor Julie Langford in Arcadia," she said, hesitantly. She had no idea who was on the other side of this. But she had never seen the splicers using any kind of technology.  
_"Nice to meet you."_  The person on the other end seemed to be just as surprised as Julie was. It was a woman, with a foreign accent, she figured.  
_"Is anybody with you?"_  Julie took a look around, just to make sure, but she was alone. She had been alone for over a year, now. If you don't count the spliced up morons downstairs.  
"No. Nobody. What's your name? Where are you?" She sat down again, unbelievably happy to talk to another human being for the first time in ages.  
_"I cannot tell you. Do not lose hope. Help is on the way."_  
Julie looked at the radio for several minutes, not able to utter a word. She had never met this woman, and she had not a single reason to trust her, but she found something comforting in her words.  
   
She hadn't heard from her for several days, as the static noise reappeared.  
_"Julie? Can you hear me?"_  
The botanist set down the potted plant she was tending to, and walked over to the radio, wiping her dirty hands on her dress.  
"Yes," she said, waiting.  
"You need to do me a favour. Go downstairs, please. Deactivate your security camera."  
   
Julie was reluctant to do so. It was dangerous to leave her office and she only did so when it was necessary. But she had no reason not to trust this person, either. Hesitantly she punched in the code to deactivate her security system and walked downstairs, cautious. She was alone here, or at least she thought so. There was a noise coming from the back of her laboratory. With her heart beating rapidly against her chest, she gripped a crowbar one of the splicers had lost and peered around the corner.  
   
A little girl was climbing out of a hole in the wall. Julie had always wondered what those were for, and why on earth she needed to have one in her laboratory, but now she understood. She had seen the little girls with those big monsters wandering Arcadia, but this one was different. Her skin wasn't sickly green, her eyes weren't glowing and instead of a Big Daddy, she had a teddy bear with her. And something else.  
   
Carefully, Julie approached her, trying not to scare the little thing, but she wasn't scared at all. The blonde girl turned around to her, smiling widely. She had a basket in her hands, filled with food and three syringes, filled with some green liquid.  
   
The radio crackled again.  
   
_"I hope you have found the little one by now. We will provide you with food as long as we can, but you need to help us as well,"_ the voice explained as Julie crouched down in front of the girl with the basket.  
_"It is risky, but if you find a Little Sister, these injections will save them. They will find their way back to me on their own. Bitte, try to save some of them."_  
   
Julie reached out and caressed the girl's cheek, with a soft smile and watery eyes. "You look so much like my Becky when she was little," she whispered, absentmindedly. The girl didn't say a word, but hugged the botanist and returned to her hole, disappearing again. Julie was still where she was, looking down at the syringes. Save them? She would have to go out there and face those splicers and Big Daddies in order to do this.  
   
Maybe it was time to learn how to use a shotgun...


	2. Tenenbaum

It felt strange to be here with them today. After all, she had done, they still trusted her.  
What other choice did they have? Their parents were either dead or out there, roaming the city for some ADAM, their faces deformed. They wouldn't recognise them, anyway. No, none of those little girls would ever see their parents again. She had to take care of them now. It was the least she could do.  
   
"Mama Tenenbaum?" One of the girls was tugging at her sleeve, looking up to the geneticist with big, blue eyes. Her dress was shabby and torn, her feet and legs were dirty. Her hand was cold, as it reached for Brigid's. They were always so cold, and she could do nothing to change this.  
   
"Can you tell us a story?" the girl asked, already dragging her towards the other girls, who were waiting, looking at her with great expectation.  
She had given them new names after she cured them. Part of Suchong's treatment was to delete all of their memories. They couldn't remember their names, their parents or where they lived, but sometimes some very strong memories bled through, like a distant dream. It had taken Tenenbaum a long time to remember their names, and whenever she confused two of them, they would start to giggle and laugh. Sometimes they even played pranks on her, pretending to be one of the other girls, just to confuse Brigid.  
   
None of them had ever seen the blue sky, felt the wind in their hair or the sun on their skin. They had been born in Rapture, born into darkness and a doomed society. But she wouldn't let them die here. She would find a way to save them. Only then she would be able to forgive herself and find peace.  
   
The girl holding her hand showed her where she had to sit down. They liked it when she sat on the bed in the corner because then they were able to sit on the mattress next to her - the closer the better. The girls who didn't get a spot on the bed sat down on a rug on the floor, looking up to her. A cold chill ran down her spine. It was always freezing cold here and yet the girls didn't seem to mind.  
   
"Once upon a time," she began, after she had been told that this was the right way to start a story, "there were many little princesses, who lived in a castle of glass at the bottom of the sea, just like Rapture. But one day, an evil witch came and cursed the little girls." They gasped, looking at each other. Sometimes Brigid wasn't sure whether she might wasn't as bad at telling stories as she'd thought, or if the girls just pretended to be interested, for her sake.  
   
"The witch didn't care about little girls and hated their happy laughter-"  
A noise silenced her, and she gently pushed the little girl sitting on her lap off of her. She saw a pair of feet coming through the hole in the wall and rushed over to it, helping the girl down.  
   
"Maya is back!" the girls chirped happily and followed Tenenbaum. The geneticist took a look at her, making sure that she was fine. She was worried whenever she sent one of them out there. Some of them never came back. But this time, more came back than she would've expected. Two more girls she hadn't seen before followed.  
"This is from Miss Langford," one of them said, holding out a potted flower. The second girl had one, too, hugging it to her chest as if it was a precious treasure.  
   
A small smile spread across Brigid's lips, as she ran her hand over the girl's head. "It's time for bed now, little ones. Hush, hush." She took the plants and was about to turn around when one of the girls tugged at her sleeve again.  
   
"But you didn't finish the story. What happened to the princesses and the witch?"  
Tenenbaum set down the plants on a table and crouched down, kissing each girl's face before going to bed, like every day.  
"The witch realised that she had made a mistake and saved the little ones. She became their new mother and lives with them in the glass castle. And one day, she will show them the sky. Sleep well, now." She watched them getting ready for bed and sat down, looking out of the window at the crumbling city.  
   
Brigid may wasn't very good at telling stories, but she would keep her promise.


End file.
